58
Opinion of the Court
as extensively regulated as the private nursing facilities in Blum and the private utility in Jackson. Like those cases, though, the state statutory and regulatory scheme leaves the challenged decisions to the judgment of insurers.
Respondents also rely on Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922 (1982), which contains general language about "joint participation" as a test for state action. But, as the Lugar opinion itself makes clear, its language must not be torn from the context out of which it arose:
"The Court of Appeals erred in holding that in this context 'joint participation' required something more than invoking the aid of state officials to take advantage of state-created attachment procedures. . . . Whatever may be true in other contexts, this is sufficient when the State has created a system whereby state officials will attach property on the ex parte application of one party to a private dispute." Id., at 942.
In the present case, of course, there is no effort by petitioners to seize the property of respondents by an ex parte application to a state official.
We conclude that an insurer's decision to withhold payment and seek utilization review of the reasonableness and necessity of particular medical treatment is not fairly attributable to the State. Respondents have therefore failed to satisfy an essential element of their § 1983 claim.
III
Though our resolution of the state-action issue would be sufficient by itself to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, we believe the court fundamentally misapprehended the nature of respondents' property interest at stake in this case, with ramifications not only for the state officials who are concededly state actors, but also for the private insurers who (under our holding in Part II) are not. If the Court of Appeals' ruling is left undisturbed, SWIF, which
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